Handheld devices such as cellular phones, two-way radios and PDA's typically have relatively limited display capabilities resulting from portability design constraints. This limits the value of image viewing applications for the user. Although an original image source may be of a high fidelity, much of this content is sacrificed when translated for the limited size, resolution and color depth of a portable display. If greater detail is desired, the user zooms in by viewing a subset of the original image at a greater magnification. A key metric is the pixel density of the portable display relative to the pixel density of a high quality original image. Many of these portable devices are wirelessly enabled and images may be transmitted in digital form to the device when needed. The bandwidth limitations of current wireless systems also add to the design constraints for handheld imaging applications. While future networks such as 3G and 4G will provide higher transmission bitrates, speed and network capacity will continue to be dominant issues for the foreseeable future.
In addition to display and wireless connection limitations, mobile devices typically are limited with regard to memory capacity. Given the vast number of images that a user may wish to view, and the potential dynamic nature of the images (e.g. weather or traffic maps, real time images, etc.), it is not practical to store the images locally within the device to avoid the wireless connection constraints. The present invention provides the user with a dynamic display interface tailored for viewing images on portable wireless devices, especially in a wireless environment.